A CASTLE IN THE SUN FOR EVERYONE (#75): The first spring and summer I was living in the Neville beach house were full of fun and sunshine. I was still working 50 hours a week plus at Fisher & Sauls, but from Saturday afternoons through Sunday I was usually off. My friends liked to have someplace to come and enjoy the beach. We rotated between Saturday night parties and Sunday cookouts, with volleyball on the beach.
Everyone was working hard at that age, and having someplace to come and relax and have fun with friends was appreciated. It was a large and varied group that came to the beach, but fortunately not all at the same time. Friends were getting married, starting families, and had work commitments.
My fraternity brothers from ADE at SPJC were regulars. Some of my Delt brothers from Florida were working in Tampa, including Dale and Connie Dignum, and they brought any brothers who happened to be visiting them. Joe Pritchard, my Delt brother and now a Facebook friend and member of our group ASPP, remembers the house had an elevator. There were also young lawyers and members of the Northeast Exchange Club. Once Tom Davis and I started the Sunshine City Jaycees, there was a new influx of good friends.
The only time everyone got together was at my PAG house for my 35th birthday party when we invited 800 people and 400 came. Again, thank you Cousin Marie Neville.
Even after the events of yesterday’s story (Are You Serious? #74), nobody felt sorry for me or considered me a loser. Life was great, the parties continued, and we took good care of the beach house.
Then one Sunday, it happened. A blond haired guy with a big grin, walked up to the volley game. He was holding a big pitcher of frozen margaritas and a stack of plastic cups. As I soon learned was Paul’s way, he offered all the girls a frozen Margarita. Paul Thomas was one of those characters you never forget.
He had just bought a large, older house an 22nd Avenue across the street from the Neville house, two houses east of Sunset Way. Paul was a realtor, and was fascinated by the big red brick house. He already knew I was living there, and as soon as he learned I was about to get my real estate license, he wanted me to come work with him. Paul had an office in a building on 8th Avenue, which was once the main street of Pass-a-grille Beach, Florida. It was on the north side of the street, in the middle of the block, near the Post Office. The real estate office took up the downstairs, and there were two apartments upstairs. The building had needed a little work, but Paul bought it for $45,000. What a bargain. Soon, I had my real estate license and a desk looking out a picture window at main street. Living and working in Pass-a-grille Beach. The logo on my Thomas Real Estate Group business card was, “A Castle In The Sun For Everyone.” Life was grand.
Paul had a very attractive girlfriend, who was also a realtor and managed the office. Paul was a born salesman and the office was successful. I listed and sold properties on the beach, including quite a few in Pass-a-grille, and managed to earn about the same as I would have made if I were still practicing law.
Paul had two other interests. First, boats, mainly sailboats and offshore power boats. Even though I was a member of the St. Petersburg Yacht Club and my grandfather had been Commodore of the Pass-a-grill Yacht Club in the late 1930s, boats didn’t hold that much appeal far me and I was easily seasick.
I remember when a friend of Paul’s bought a large sailboat through a broker in Ft. Lauderdale. The boat had been hauled out for a marine survey and to have the hull painted. Albert called in a panic to tell Paul that after the closing the boat had been seized for an unpaid lien, “They are walking around on the deck in street shoes and leaving marks.” We drove down to see what was going on.
We discovered that the broker had not checked to see if any money was due to the marina where the boat was docked, and the marina had filed a lien. I made a lot of lawyer noises and the seller wired the money due the marina and the broker agreed to pay for the hull painting out of his commission. Albert, who owned a hotel on St. Pete beach was a very nice man, but as I recall, this was only the beginning of his problems with the boat.
Paul was also fascinated by offshore power boats and I went on several runs with him out and around Egmont Key. The speed and pounding was terrific, but I didn’t care for it. Paul had the first movie script I had ever seen, basically Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid race offshore powerboats, As a good of a salesman as Paul was, he could never raise the money to make the movie.
I had grown up with some exposure to hydroplane racing. The Southland Regatta was run annually at Lake Maggiore from 1951 until 1988. Lake Maggiore was considered the fastest course in the country because the lake was so shallow, three to four feet around most of the course. When I was growing up, my dad was one of the Starters and owned the small cannon that was fired to signal the start of a race. The Northeast Exchange Club, which I joined when I moved back to St. Petersburg, also help with volunteer manpower for the races. Bald eagle nests and badly polluted water brought the races to an end.
Hydroplane racing had no appeal to Paul, because he couldn’t take women out in a hydroplane. Women were Paul’s other interest and he had developed a number of ways to get them “to shuck their duds”, as Gamble Rogers would say. Topless boat cruises were a favorite. Parties at Paul’s house were always an adventure and involved of cases of of champagne, strip backgammon, and skinny dipping. These were Paul’s friends, not mine. The men and women were a little older and included, doctors, business owners, very successful realtors, and more.
One night at a party of Paul’s, skinny dipping turned into no bathing suits coed chicken fights in the water off Pass-a-grille Beach. Since when you walked to the beach from Paul’s house you ended up next to the Neville house, I was afraid the neighbors would complain to Mrs. Neville. I spent several nervous days, but the battles must not have been as loud as they seemed in the water. I had a serious talk with Paul and that was the ended of the chicken fights. I went out a champion and he got a hot tub.
The hours of our real estate office were perfect for me. The office didn’t open until 10:00 in the morning, and I didn’t mind showing houses after other people’s work hours or on weekends. I dated a lot, but never found anyone special, like the the two girls I had dated in college and law school. I was starting to realize I had made a serious mistake.
One night, Tom Davis and I went to the SPYC to watch the Festival of States Parade. And then I saw her! I am a person that believes in love at first sight. My life was in for a big change. I was about to do a little growing up!
